Breadcrumb

Percy Bysshe Shelley: Scene 1.1:

Scene 1.1:

An apartment in the Cenci palace.

Enter Count Cenci and Cardinal Camillo.

CAMILLO:That matter of the murder is hushed upIf you consent to yield his HolinessYour fief that lies beyond the Pincian gate.—It needed all my interest in the conclaveTo bend him to this point; he said that youBought perilous impunity with your gold;That crimes like yours if once or twice compoundedEnriched the Church, and respited from hellAn erring soul which might repent and live: —But that the glory and the interestOf the high throne he fills, little consistWith making it a daily mart of guiltAs manifold and hideous as the deedsWhich you scarce hide from men's revolted eyes.

CENCI:The third of my possessions—let it go!Ay, I once heard the nephew of the PopeHad sent his architect to view the ground,Meaning to build a villa on my vinesThe next time I compounded with his uncle:I little thought he should outwit me so!Henceforth no witness—not the lamp—shall seeThat which the vassal threatened to divulgeWhose throat is choked with dust for his reward.The deed he saw could not have rated higherThan his most worthless life:—it angers me!Respited me from Hell! So may the DevilRespite their souls from Heaven! No doubt Pope Clement,And his most charitable nephews, prayThat the Apostle Peter and the SaintsWill grant for their sake that I long enjoyStrength, wealth, and pride, and lust, and length of daysWherein to act the deeds which are the stewardsOf their revenue.—But much yet remainsTo which they show no title.

CAMILLO:Oh, Count Cenci!So much that thou mightst honourably liveAnd reconcile thyself with thine own heartAnd with thy God, and with the offended world.How hideously look deeds of lust and bloodThrough those snow white and venerable hairs!—Your children should be sitting round you now,But that you fear to read upon their looksThe shame and misery you have written there.Where is your wife? Where is your gentle daughter?Methinks her sweet looks, which make all things elseBeauteous and glad, might kill the fiend within you.Why is she barred from all societyBut her own strange and uncomplaining wrongs?Talk with me, Count,—you know I mean you well.I stood beside your dark and fiery youthWatching its bold and bad career, as menWatch meteors, but it vanished not—I markedYour desperate and remorseless manhood; nowDo I behold you in dishonoured ageCharged with a thousand unrepented crimes.Yet I have ever hoped you would amend,And in that hope have saved your life three times.

CENCI:For which Aldobrandino owes you nowMy fief beyond the Pincian.—Cardinal,One thing, I pray you, recollect henceforth,And so we shall converse with less restraint.A man you knew spoke of my wife and daughter—He was accustomed to frequent my house;So the next day HIS wife and daughter cameAnd asked if I had seen him; and I smiled:I think they never saw him any more.

CAMILLO:Thou execrable man, beware!—

CENCI:Of thee?Nay, this is idle: —We should know each other.As to my character for what men call crimeSeeing I please my senses as I list,And vindicate that right with force or guile,It is a public matter, and I care notIf I discuss it with you. I may speakAlike to you and my own conscious heart—For you give out that you have half reformed me,Therefore strong vanity will keep you silentIf fear should not; both will, I do not doubt.All men delight in sensual luxury,All men enjoy revenge; and most exultOver the tortures they can never feel—Flattering their secret peace with others' pain.But I delight in nothing else. I loveThe sight of agony, and the sense of joy,When this shall be another's, and that mine.And I have no remorse and little fear,Which are, I think, the checks of other men.This mood has grown upon me, until nowAny design my captious fancy makesThe picture of its wish, and it forms noneBut such as men like you would start to know,Is as my natural food and rest debarredUntil it be accomplished.

CAMILLO:Art thou notMost miserable?

CENCI:Why miserable?—No.—I am what your theologians callHardened;—which they must be in impudence,So to revile a man's peculiar taste.True, I was happier than I am, while yetManhood remained to act the thing I thought;While lust was sweeter than revenge; and nowInvention palls:—Ay, we must all grow old—And but that there remains a deed to act[1]Whose horror might make sharp an appetiteDuller than mine—I'd do,—I know not what.When I was young I thought of nothing elseBut pleasure; and I fed on honey sweets:Men, by St. Thomas! cannot live like bees,And I grew tired:—yet, till I killed a foe,And heard his groans, and heard his children's groans,Knew I not what delight was else on earth,Which now delights me little. I the ratherLook on such pangs as terror ill conceals,The dry fixed eyeball; the pale, quivering lip,Which tell me that the spirit weeps withinTears bitterer than the bloody sweat of Christ.I rarely kill the body, which preserves,Like a strong prison, the soul within my power,Wherein I feed it with the breath of fearFor hourly pain.

CAMILLO:Hell's most abandoned fiendDid never, in the drunkenness of guilt,Speak to his heart as now you speak to me;I thank my God that I believe you not.

[ENTER ANDREA.]

ANDREA:My Lord, a gentleman from SalamancaWould speak with you.

CENCI:Bid him attend meIn the grand saloon.

[EXIT ANDREA.]

CAMILLO:Farewell; and I will prayAlmighty God that thy false, impious wordsTempt not his spirit to abandon thee.

[EXIT CAMILLO.]

CENCI:The third of my possessions! I must useClose husbandry, or gold, the old man's sword,Falls from my withered hand. But yesterdayThere came an order from the Pope to makeFourfold provision for my cursed sons;Whom I had sent from Rome to Salamanca,[2]Hoping some accident might cut them off;And meaning if I could to starve them there.I pray thee, God, send some quick death upon them!Bernardo and my wife could not be worseIf dead and damned:—then, as to Beatrice—[LOOKING AROUND HIM SUSPICIOUSLY.]I think they cannot hear me at that door;What if they should? And yet I need not speakThough the heart triumphs with itself in words.O, thou most silent air, that shalt not hear[3]What now I think! Thou, pavement, which I treadTowards her chamber,—let your echoes talkOf my imperious step scorning surprise,But not of my intent!—Andrea!

[ENTER ANDREA.]

ANDREA:My lord?

CENCI:Bid Beatrice attend me in her chamberThis evening:—no, at midnight and alone.